Up until a couple of days ago, when I opened multiple jpgs they would
all open in ONE Explorer window and could be navigated through using
the forward and back buttons (I am using IExplorer 6.0). Two day ago I
noticed that if I tried to open multiple jpgs that Microsoft Photo
Editor would the first in the list but cannot handle multiple files.
So using Right-click 'Open with...' I set them to open using Internet
explorer again and ticked the 'Always use this programme to open this
kind of file' box. However this changed all my usual red pictureframe
jpg icons to the internet explorer icon, and while files do open using
Explorer, each picture opens in an individual window. My question is,
how do I reset back to the way things were before?
One piece of information that may or may not be significant is that on
the day when this happened I uninstalled and reinstalled Office 2000.
I have run McAfee virus scan, Spybot and Adaware and found nothing.
I consider myself to be pretty techie but this has me stumped.

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Clarification of Question by rissos-ga on 15 Apr 2005 06:22 PDT

In response to sje's comment, unfortunately that did not work. JPGs
are already associated with Internet explorer. The problem is that
opening multiple files opens each picture in a seperate window instead
of just one. Thanks for the comment though.

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Clarification of Question by rissos-ga on 18 Apr 2005 05:57 PDT

Thanks to everyone who has commented. Unfortunately we are still only
partway there. I did not realise this was going to be so complicated,
so there will be a $5 tip to whoever comes up with the answer.
I'm partway there. Jpgs are associated with IExplorer again, but they
are still opening in multiple windows. Jemtallon's suggestions, from
looking at the Microsoft site should have worked but unfortunately
don't- I get an error saying that "xxx file (or one of it's components
cannot be found)" when I open a file using DDE, even though the file
DOES open. Trying to open multiple files opens multiple windows with
the same error message in each one.
I'm using Windows 2000 and the Reuse windows option is already checked.

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Clarification of Question by rissos-ga on 21 Apr 2005 07:23 PDT

Volterwd-I don't use preview, it doesn't appearas an option. The
preview pane in wondows explorer can only show one pic at a time.

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Clarification of Question by rissos-ga on 22 Apr 2005 02:36 PDT

Hi Jem,
I checked the registry. There is one differnce compared to what you posted.
Under ddeexec as well as the default, there is also NoActivateHandler
Reg_SZ with a blank under the data column.
I also occasionally use Firefox, but again, this does not allow
opening multiple files. I appreciate all your help here.

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Clarification of Question by rissos-ga on 25 Apr 2005 01:05 PDT

Hi Jem,
I'll accept having to use Firefox as it doesn't look like I will be
able to get Explorer to do this anymore.
Thnkas for all you help,
Rissos.

Hello rissos-ga,

Your problem is one of file association.  You need to change the
application which is associated with .jpg

To do this, use Windows Explorer (not internet explorer) and under the
'Tools' menu select 'Folder Options...'.  This will open a new window
where one of the Tabs along the top will be 'File Types'.  Select this
one.  Nearly done.

Scroll down to JPG and JPEG - you'll see that these are associated
with Photo editor.  You need to change these to Internet Explorer. 
Select 'Change' and then pick Internet Explorer which is one of the
options presented.

I hope that works for you.

S.

If you want to change the thumbnail associated with a JPG, you can do
that on the same window. To change the icon, click on 'Advanced'
instead of 'Change'. Then click the 'Change Icon...' button on the new
window that comes up. A window will appear that allows you to select
an icon. Chances are that it's set to pull icons from Internet
Explorer now so you'll need to get it back to the source with the red
box. On Windows XP you can enter "shimgvw.dll" in the box at the top
and hit enter to get a listing of the default JPG icons. I'm not sure
what the sources are for other versions of Windows. If you post what
version you have I'll track it down for you, though.

Jem Tallon

Based on your responsed I'm assuming you're on Windows 95, 98 or ME.
The solution for this problem on those versions is to click on the
'Advanced' box again (the same one as for the icon) and double-click
on "open" in the Actions box. When the new window opens, check the box
that says "Use DDE" and then fill in the following values:

DDE Message:"file://%1",,-1,,,,,
Application: "C:\PROGRA~1\INTERN~1\iexplore.exe" -nohome
DDE Application Not Running: leave blank
Topic:WWW_OpenURL

This fix (and a few more details on it) can be found at
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=253788

I think if you want all the pics to open up in one window then goto
internet explorer -> tools -> options -> advanced.  check the checkbox
that says "reuse windows..." ,  apply and close.

thanks,
fj

right click on the picture, and select open with, and it will change
the icons of your pictures, really simple

When you select multiple files and right click... what happens when you use preview?

If all of that didn't help you, there's only two things left I can
recommend. The easiest solution might be to install another browser
and see if that browser will support the same behavior.

I believe Mozilla Firefox can be configured to do this by clicking on
Tools->Options... from a browser window and then changing the Tabbed
Browsing options from the Advanced section.

The only other solution I can think of for Internet Explorer would be
to examine the registry entry for html files. (Note: This should only
be attempted if you know how to use the Registry Editor. I also
recommend making a registry backup before editing the registry, just
in case.) The HTML key should be located under
"HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes\htmlfile\shell\open". The entry
should look like:

>open
 -> command : (Default) REG_SZ "C:\Progra~1\Intern~1\iexplorer.exe" -nohome
 -> ddeexec : (Default) REG_SZ "file://%1",,-1,,,,,
 --> Application : (Default) REG_SZ IExplore
 --> Topic :  (Default) REG_SZ WWW_OpenURL

If it looks different, please post the differences. Hopefully I can
track down what's keeping it from working with that info. If the entry
is exactly the same as what's posted above, I'm afraid there isn't
much more I can recommend other than trying another browser.

Out of curiosity, does anyone know if the System File Checker in
Windows 98 would reset this registry entry? I don't think it does in
current versions but sometimes the older versions do strange things.
If it does, that might be one last thing to try.

Jem Tallon

I'm sorry about that. The NoActivateHandler was in my listing as well.
I just forgot to include it. I'm afraid I don't know what else I can
say about IE. As far as I know, it should be working now. The one last
thought I have is that newer versions of IE may no longer support this
behavior (as the MS solution is not recommended for ME, which came
with IE 6, I think). In that case, this would've stopped working
around the time of your last Windows Update. Other than that
possibility, I'm afraid I've reached my limit, rissos. Sorry :(

At least there is some hope of getting a similar behavior from FireFox
if you're willing to use that instead. To configure FireFox to open
multiple files in one window, open a FireFox window and click on Tools
from the menu at the top of the window. Select "Options..." from the
Tools drop-down box. In the new window that opens, click on Advanced
and then "Tabbed Browsing." Finally, under "Open links from other
applications in," put a dot in the radio button labeled "The most
recent tab/window." This will set the behavior for all files that
FireFox opens. Now all you need to do is set your JPG settings to open
with FireFox. To do that, follow all of sje143's instructions above
except when told to select Internet Explorer, select FireFox.

I've tried this all on my local machine and it worked fine so
hopefully this will work for you too. Let us know if it doesn't! Good
luck!

Jem Tallon